Arrow APEX Puts Partners in F1 Pole Position

Car racing looks like it’s a simple sport; the car does most of the work, and you put an adrenaline junkie in the driving seat. But negotiating the best turns, angles and speeds takes great skill. On a track, at the point where the racing line meets the inside corner is the APEX – a sweet spot that will slingshot you out of the corner with maximum speed if you hit it right.

Much like a racing car driver, Arrow ECS ANZ is a distributor that makes complex things look easy.

They take complex technologies like HPE, and wrap a whole bunch of expertise and services around it to make it translatable to their partners.

The new Arrow APEX program is a great example.

Launched this year; APEX is a channel program built from the ground up, engineered by Arrow to incorporate training, certification, lead generation and incentives for HPE-Aruba partners, (Business Partner & Silver Status).

Developed to drive the best out of their partners, APEX program partners are rewarded with a chance to attend the prestigious F1 Grand Prix in Singapore as an incentive to perform at their best. Managing director of Arrow ECS ANZ, Nick Verykios says “Our business drives business, this is more than just going along with the F1 theme, in this current climate, having know-how is just not enough, it is also vital to ensure that business can develop and scale significantly with any partnership.”

Advanced channel enablement is the end-game for Arrow who has set about providing services to drive partner sales by taking the ideology behind Formula One racing.

Verykios places the emphasis on how partners can work with Arrow to lead locally and grow their business. “They have already invested in the technology; the next step is to switch on all the features and use this to help solve customer challenges…in the end the resellers will create their own demand.” he adds, “This is when we come into the picture to help them invest in their customer base to take a targeted, more bespoke proposal proactively to their customers.” In other words, anticipating the next wave rather than merely participating in it when it hits.

APEX takes off

Taking the lead and in this case, pole position, has been the Arrow story across ANZ. As a market leader in the region, Arrow is constantly evolving and creating new programs with its technology partners.

Although APEX is relatively new, the combined resources of Arrow and HPE has made this incentive program one to watch, with four streams covering the main technology stacks across the HPE range; server, storage, networking and wireless; and two ‘lap’ focus areas, across both sales and technical. This sleek and powerful program promises the glory of F1 and also delivers on this promise to their winning partners with the top four partners being flown to Singapore in July to attend the Grand Prix.

“But,” Verykios says, “trips like Singapore aren’t just fun trips, they are educational. Partners need to be participating in our education programs, because if they aren’t they won’t be able to progress to any of the next steps. New knowledge is required to be able to execute on it, particularly when it comes to reference architectures and cross-selling across stacks.” However, the reward is significant for partners who dare to win. Partners who take the final lap around the course, will achieve a HPE specialisation, with training and certification, plus non-HPE sales and technical insights and training shared along the way.

What can be earned through Apex are that intellectual assets can grow and evolve the partner’s own business and that is a massive competitive advantage.

Click here to find out more about Arrow ECS ANZ.